Text and the City: Essays on Japanese Modernity

Ai Maeda

Published by Duke University Press 2004

Text and the City

Essays on Japanese Modernity

Ai Maeda
Edited by: James A. Fujii , Rey Chow , Harry Harootunian and Masao Miyoshi

In the series Asia-Pacific: Culture, Politics, and Society

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822385622

Overview
Contents

About this book

The first translation into English of essays on modern Japanese literature, culture, and urban ethnography written by the late Ai Maeda, arguably the most prominent 20th century Japanese literary and cultural critic.

Author / Editor information

Maeda Ai (1931–1987) was a renowned Japanese literary and cultural critic. He taught at Rikkyo University. His many books include the three-volume The Space of Tokyo 1868-1930 (1986), The World of Higuchi Ichiyo (1978), Meiji as Phantasm (1978), and The Creation of the Modern Reader (1973).
James A. Fujii is Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Complicit Fictions: The Subject in the Modern Japanese Prose Narrative.

James A. Fujii is Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Complicit Fictions: The Subject in the Modern Japanese Prose Narrative.

Reviews

“Despite lamentably premature death of Maeda Ai in 1987, his works have left an incontrovertible mark on the study of early modern and modern Japanese literature. Adopting liberally from phenomenological hermeneutics, cultural anthropology, structural semiotics and marxist literary studies, Maeda invented new ways of inquiring into the historicity of ‘literature’ and articulated the scope of literary studies to other domains in the human and social sciences, thereby leading a number of young scholars of Japan in the United States in the direction of what would be generally recognized as ‘cultural studies.’ In the fields of trans-Pacific Japanese studies, it is no exaggeration to say that Maeda accomplished something comparable to what Raymond Williams did in the English-speaking world.”—Naoki Sakai, Cornell University

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Foreword: A Walker in the City: Maeda Ai and the Mapping of Urban Space Harry Harootunian Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction: Refiguring the Modern: Maeda Ai and the City James A. Fujii Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
LIGHT CITY, DARK CITY: VISUALIZING THE MODERN
1. Utopia of the Prisonhouse: A Reading of In Darkest Tokyo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
2. The Panorama of Enlightenment Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
3. The Spirits of Abandoned Gardens: On Nagai Kafū’s ‘‘The Fox’’ Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
PLAY, SPACE, AND MASS CULTURE
4. Their Time as Children: A Study of Higuchi Ichiyō’s Growing Up (Takekurabe) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
5. Asakusa as Theater: Kawabata Yasunari’s The Crimson Gang of Asakusa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
6. The Development of Popular Fiction in the Late Taishō Era: Increasing Readership of Women’s Magazines Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
TEXT, SPACE, VISUALITY
7. From Communal Performance to Solitary Reading: The Rise of the Modern Japanese Reader Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
8. Modern Literature and the World of Printing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
CROSSING BOUNDARIES IN URBAN SPACE
9. Ryūhoku in Paris Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	275
10. Berlin 1888: Mori Ōgai’s ‘‘Dancing Girl’’ Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	295
11. In the Recesses of the High City: On Sōseki’s Gate Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	329
AFTERWORD William F. Sibley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	351
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	375
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	377

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 408
Illustrations
- Other: 16 illus., 7 maps, 6 tables

eBook

Published: March 25, 2004
ISBN: 9780822385622